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Comment by Declanomous | Hacker News Reader

I read everything put in front of me when I bought my car. Boy was the finance guy pissed, cause it took me like an hour, and he makes his living upselling add-ons and stuff.

I'm also a pretty fast reader, so it is pretty obvious that they absolutely expect you to not read whatever it is you are signing, because I assume that it would take most other people well over an hour to read.

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You're my hero. That's what I wish I'd done the last time I bought a new car from a dealership. They knew I was coming in to buy that day and could have given me the paperwork on the warranties etc to review, but instead decided to spring it on me just when I thought I was about to walk off with the car.

They also asked me to sign a form that said "I have inspected the car" before I'd seen it at all. Sickens me.

I did the same and do it every time. I know their job is actually just to sell warranties and after-market products and the paperwork is a side-job, but I just can't spend $20-30k+ and sign a bunch of papers without reading them and taking some time.

Each of these places have their own branded contracts and similar, but unique documents that look like they typed up and copied some word document they wrote 7 years ago and have never re-printed.

And the descriptions they give are usually a couple works... This one is a power of attorney, it lets us handle title work for your car on your behalf. I had my title in-hand and signed it over to them, so I was really confused why that was necessary among several other things.

My understanding is that the "finance guys" who offer these extended warranties and what not make the most and easiest money. At least when I did this last time at a dealership, they were flaunting the most wealth (expensive shirt/watch).

> I had my title in-hand and signed it over to them, so I was really confused why that was necessary among several other things.

They file the paperwork with the state. If possession of the title printout was sufficient to legally take possession of someone's car, that would open the door to a lot of easy car thefts.

Same when I was closing on a house. Yes, it may be routine to you, Mr. Title Company person who sees these 23 times a week, but this is a pretty major endeavor I'm entering into and I'd kind of like to know what I'm getting into.

I did the same and spent 45 minutes enjoying explaining the time value of money and opportunity costs when they were trying to upsell me. I also googled the prices on the hood rock cover undercoat and pre paid maintenance plan.y favorite was the panicked look when he said that the warranty was void if the oil was changed outside the dealer and I informed him that was illegal in the whole us. Eventually he just gave up and sold me the car when the manager was trying to get the room for another sale.

I enjoyed putting the warranty In terms of a bet. Would you spend $5k on a lottery ticket that had payout capped at $25k? No. Then why are you trying to sell me a 3rd party warranty?

I enjoyed the whole process. I set aside a whole day for it.

The best part was when my credit card didn't run for some reason and I didn't have the full payment :)

I took mine home on my first car. Found out they hadn't sent it through Honda finance like was discussed for 3.5% but a local bank at close to 19.5%...they were upset the next day...then really upset with the approval from Honda. I was a young freshly graduated college student whom they thought apparently couldn't read.

I did the same for my current car. I noted to the lady that I'd ticked the "don't spam me" checkbox at the bottom and she admitted that she hadn't even noticed it was there. :P

But did you remember to tick the "I'm not a robot" checkbox[1]?

[1] https://twitter.com/marcirobin/status/998030243981033472?lan...

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